Standard Model and Feynman Diagrams!
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According to our TA, quite a few students in the
class don't seem to know what a correct Feynman diagram looks
like, and draw diagrams that are physically impossible or
mislabeled. In the Standard Model, there are not many different
diagrams. If we consider vertices, there are only four types of
vertices involving fermions. The strong interaction is based on
a quark-gluon vertex. Since color is not generally indicated,
all the vertices look the same, with the only difference between
one and another being the specific quark flavor involved. The
electromagnetic interaction vertices all look the same,
involving a charged fermion emitting a photon. The weak
interaction is slightly more complex, because we have two types
of vertices, those involving W±, which are
antiparticles of one another and whose emission or absorption
always changes flavor, and those involving Z0, which
has vertices like those for photon emission. In fact the only
difference between emission of a photon versus emission of a Z0
is that the coupling constant is different, and while the EM
force has infinite range, the Z interaction is basically
pointlike because of the Z's enormous mass. Of course charge is
conserved at any vertex. According to the TA, here are
some typical student diagrams:
There are obvious problems with the upper
diagram. There is no such boson as W0, and the actual
Z0 boson, if that is what is meant, cannot
cause a change of flavor. It does the same things as the photon,
γ. Upon absorption, it could not change one quark into another,
nor could it change a quark into an antiquark, or vice
versa. [Particles and corresponding antiparticles can
annihilate into Z-bosons, of course. To avoid confusion you
should draw diagrams in such a way as to clearly distinguish
between spacelike and timelike virtual bosons, with time
advancing either upward or to the right... your choice.] The
errors in the lower diagram should be obvious to you,
also. Emission of a W boson cannot change a quark or
antiquark into a lepton. It can only change flavor WITHIN
the categories of quark and lepton. In other words, it can
change one quark into another, or one lepton into another,
only. In every process we have ever seen in nature, charge
is conserved. It's also true that in every process we have
ever seen in nature, both baryon number and lepton number are
conserved. There is no known reason for this, since baryon
number and lepton number are not, respectively, generators of
symmetries. Also, electron, tauon and muon lepton numbers
are individually conserved except in neutrino
oscillations. Here are some examples of correct Feynman
diagrams, gleaned from the internet.
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